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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a major national non-profit organization based in New York City , whose mission is to defend individual and minority rights in the United States through litigation. Lawsuit s brought by the ACLU have been influential in the development of U.S. Constitution al law. The ACLU provides Lawyer s and legal expertise in cases in which it considers civil liberties to be at risk. In many cases where it does not provide legal representation, the ACLU submits '' Amicus Curiae '' Briefs in support of its positions. According to its annual report, the ACLU has over 500,000 members as of the end of 2005. The ACLU has never officially supported or opposed a political candidate, and is not aligned with any political party, though it has been harshly critical of various elected officials of both the (NGOs) in the United States today; often controversial, its stances have engendered criticism from both sides of the political spectrum (see Critics Of The ACLU ). HISTORY In 1917, Roger Nash Baldwin became head of the National Civil Liberties Bureau (NCLB), an independent outgrowth of the American Union Against Militarism , which opposed American intervention in World War I . The NCLB provided legal advice and aid for Conscientious Objector s and those being prosecuted under the Espionage Act Of 1917 or Sedition Act Of 1918 . In 1920, the NCLB changed its name to the American Civil Liberties Union, with Baldwin continuing as its director. Crystal Eastman and Albert DeSilver , along with other former members of the NCLB, assisted Baldwin with the founding of the ACLU. {Link without Title} In the year of its birth, the ACLU was formed to protect aliens threatened with Deportation , and U.S. nationals threatened with criminal charges by U.S. Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer for their Communist or Socialist activities and agendas (see Palmer Raids ). It also opposed attacks on the rights of the Industrial Workers Of The World (IWW) and other Labor Union s to meet and organize. In 1940, the ACLU formally barred communists from leadership or staff positions, and would take the position that it did not want communists as members either. The board declared that it was "inappropriate for any person to serve on the governing committees of the Union or its staff, who is a member of any political organization which supports , a member of both the Communist Party Of The USA and the IWW The ACLU has been criticized by some of its later members for this policy, and in the 1960s there was an internal push to remove this prohibition. [http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_09_04-2005_09_10.shtml#1126047007 In the 1988 presidential election, then- Vice President George H.W. Bush called then- Governor Michael Dukakis a "card-carrying member of the ACLU," which Dukakis proudly acknowledged. It now serves as a jocular recruitment slogan for the ACLU. [http://www.aclu.org/Contribute/Contribute.cfm The September 11, 2001 Attacks , and the ensuing debate regarding the proper balance of civil liberties and security including the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act , led to a 20% increase in membership between August 2001 and December 2002, when its total enrollment reached 330,000 The growth has continued; in August 2004, ACLU membership was at 400,000 [http://www.madison.com/tct/news/images/index.php?ntid=7175&ntpid=0 . The ACLU has been a vocal opponent of the PATRIOT Act of 2001, the PATRIOT 2 Act, and associated legislation made in response to the threat of domestic terrorism, that it believes violates either the letter or the spirit of the U.S. Bill Of Rights . In response to a requirement of the PATRIOT Act, the ACLU withdrew from a Federal Donation Program that provides matching funds from the federal government for federal employees. The requirement was that ACLU employees must be checked against a federal anti-terrorism watch list. The ACLU estimates that it will lose approximately $500,000 in such contributions. ''See also:'' ACLU V. Ashcroft (2004) LEADERSHIP Currently, the leadership of the ACLU includes Executive Director Anthony Romero , President Nadine Strossen , and Legal Director Steven Shapiro . Notably, Ruth Bader Ginsburg , a current Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court , founded the ACLU's Women's Rights Project in 1972. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa speaking at an ACLU event. Villaraigosa is a former director of the ACLU Southern California affiliate.]] STRUCTURE Although the ACLU has its national headquarters located in New York City, the organization does most of its work through locally based affiliates, organized into fifty state chapters. These affiliates maintain a certain amount of autonomy from the National organization, and are able to work independently from each other. Many of the ACLU's cases originate from the local level and are handled by lawyers from the local affiliates. The ACLU's involvement in the internment of Japanese in the United States during World War II, which bears on the question of the autonomy of local ACLU chapters, is often misunderstood or misrepresented. There are differing ideas on the role the ACLU took, some have argued that the ACLU remained silent on the issue. Still others have claimed that the national branch of the ACLU threatened to revoke the chapter status of the ACLU of Northern California for defending Toyosaburo Korematsu in the Supreme Court in Korematsu V. United States , . These arguments are hard to square with the fact that the national branch of the ACLU actually filed a brief of amicus curiae with the court on behalf of Mr. Korematsu. In fact, the ACLU argued that some internments may have been necessary for the security of the nation, but that by interning Americans without giving them a hearing, the military was violating their right to due process. The ACLU argued that the internments should have civilian oversight, instead of military, and that the Japanese in the camps had been interned on the basis of racial discrimination. State chapters remain the basic unit of the ACLU's organization. In a twenty month period beginning January 2004, the ACLU's New Jersey chapter, to take one example, was involved in fifty-one cases according to their annual report -- thirty-five cases in state courts, and sixteen in federal court. They provided legal representation in thirty-three of those cases, and served as amicus in the remaining eighteen. They listed forty-four volunteer attorneys who assisted them in those cases. The New York Civil Liberties Union , the New York State chapter, has 35,000 members and is among the most prominent state chapters. POSITIONS The ACLU's stated mission is to defend the rights of all citizens as enshrined in the Bill Of Rights of the United States Constitution. While the bulk of the ACLU's cases involve the First Amendment , Equal Protection , Due Process , and the Right To Privacy (see, ''e.g.'', the Louisiana chapter {Link without Title} ), the organization has taken positions on a wide range of controversial issues. Broadly, the ACLU:
The ACLU has opposed some campaign finance laws such as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act , which it considers an inappropriate restriction upon freedom of expression. It does not, however, have a blanket opposition to all laws on campaign finance. The official policy of the national ACLU argues that the Second Amendment is "intended mainly to protect the right of the states to maintain militias to assure their own freedom and security against the central government" and is not intended to "confer an unlimited right upon individuals to own guns or other weapons." {Link without Title} The ACLU has generally avoided taking gun-related cases, and this has occasioned criticism by those who consider their interpretation of the amendment to be far "softer" than its "hard-line" stances on other parts of the law. The ACLU has been noted for vigorously defending the right to express unpopular, controversial, and extremist opinions on both the left and right. Some have expressed the view that the ACLU sometimes plays a role comparable to that played by Public Defender s, helping to ensure that even unpopular defendants receive due process. NOTABLE CASES Since its founding, the ACLU has been involved in many cases (see the List Of ACLU Cases for a fuller list). A few of the most significant are discussed here. In 1925, the ACLU persuaded John T. Scopes to defy Tennessee 's anti- Evolution law in a court test. Clarence Darrow , a member of the ACLU National Committee, headed Scopes' legal team. The ACLU lost the case and Scopes was fined $100. The Tennessee Supreme Court later upheld the law but overturned the conviction on a technicality. In 1942, a few months after the Japan ese attack on Pearl Harbor , the ACLU affiliates on the West Coast became some of the sharpest critics of the government's policy on enemy aliens and U.S. citizens descended from enemy ancestry. This included the relocation of Japanese-American Citizens , Internment of aliens, prejudicial curfews ('' Hirabayashi V. United States '', 1943), and the like. However, the national board of the ACLU dodged the issue, taking a mildly pro-government position: it accepted the internment in principle and only demanded that relocatees, once "cleared" of any suspicion of wrongdoing, be released from the concentration camps in which they were held. In 1954, the ACLU played a role in the case of '' Brown V. Board Of Education '', which led to the ban on segregation in U.S. Public School s. In 1973, the organization was the first major national organization to call for the Impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon , giving as reasons the violation by the Nixon administration of civil liberties. That same year, the ACLU was involved in the cases of '' Roe V. Wade '' and '' Doe V. Bolton '', in which the Supreme Court held that the constitutional right of privacy extended to women seeking Abortion s. In 1977, the ACLU filed suit against the Village of Skokie, Illinois , seeking an injunction against the enforcement of three town ordinances outlawing Nazi parades and demonstrations (Skokie had a large Jew ish population). A federal district court struck down the ordinances in a decision eventually affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court . The ACLU's action in this case led to the resignation of about 15 percent of the membership from the organization (25 percent in Illinois ), especially of Jewish members. A cutback in its activities was avoided by a special mailing which elicited $500,000 in contributions. In his February 23, 1978 decision overturning the town ordinances, US District Court Judge Bernard M. Decker described the principle involved in the case as follows: "It is better to allow those who preach racial hatred to expend their venom in rhetoric rather than to be panicked into embarking on the dangerous course of permitting the government to decide what its citizens may say and hear ... The ability of American society to tolerate the advocacy of even hateful doctrines ... is perhaps the best protection we have against the establishment of any Nazi-type regime in this country." In the 1980s, the ACLU filed suit to challenge the Arkansas 1981 Creationism statute, which required the teaching in public schools of the biblical account of creation as a scientific alternative to evolution. The law was declared unconstitutional by a Federal District Court. In 2006 in ACLU V. NSA , the ACLU challenged government spying in the NSA Warrantless Surveillance Controversy . FUNDING The ACLU receives funding from a large number of sources; the distribution and amount of funding for each chapter varies from state to state. To take one particular example, the ACLU of New Jersey reported $1.2 million in income to both the ACLU-NJ and its affiliated tax-exempt foundation in the 2005 fiscal year. Of that income, 46% came from contributions, 19% came from membership dues, 18% came from court awarded attorney fees, 12% came from grants, 4% came from investment income and the remainder from other sources. Its expenses in the same period were $800,000, of which 12% went to administration and management. Smaller chapters with fewer resources, such as that in Nebraska , receive subsidies from the national ACLU {Link without Title} . The ACLU and its affiliated tax-exempt foundation receive annual support from the Ford , Rockefeller , Carnegie , Field , Tides , Gill , Arcus , Horizons , and other foundations. However, recently the ACLU rejected $1.5 million from both the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations because it viewed a clause in the donation agreement stipulating that "none of the money would go to underwriting terrorism or other unacceptable activities" as a threat to civil liberties. The ACLU also withdrew from a federal charity drive, losing an estimated $500,000, taking a stand against the attached condition that it would "not knowingly hire anyone on terrorism watch lists." Other key donors include Peter B. Lewis (an insurance magnate) {Link without Title} . It is sometimes asserted that the ACLU collects legal fees in the event that they are involved on the winning side of a legal judgment {Link without Title} . As described in greater detail below, while there are restrictions on how fees may be collected, the ACLU has in a number of cases indeed received substantial monetary awards. The awarding of legal fees to groups like the ACLU in civil rights cases remains highly controversial for some. The Public Expression of Religion Act of 2005, for example, introduced by Representative Thomas More Law Center , for example, generally seeks, and is successful in, recovery of legal fees in the same manner as the ACLU [http://www.thomasmore.org/news.html?NewsID=383 . In many cases however, due to the nature of its legal work, the ACLU is involved in litigation against governmental bodies, which are generally protected from adverse monetary judgements: ''i.e.'', a town, state or Federal agency may be required to change its laws or behave differently, but not to pay monetary damages except by an explicit statutory waiver [http://www.chainyounger.com/pa_cases_against_government.html#1 . In some cases, the law does permit plantiffs who successfully sue government agencies to collect damages. In particular, a 1976 Federal law, the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act, among other similar laws, does leave the government liable in some civil rights cases. In many cases where the ACLU represents plantiffs, the case is handled not by ACLU attorneys, but by sympathetic law firms who provide their services '' Pro Bono ''. In these cases, the law firm may sue for legal fees; in such circumstances the money would be awarded to the firm, and not the ACLU. {Link without Title} These caveats aside, the ACLU and its state chapters do, in cases where they provide legal services and laws permit government liability, share in monetary judgements against government agencies. It shared, for example, with other plantiffs in a $156,960 judgement against the State of Nebraska in a gay marriage case now on appeal {Link without Title} . A separate example involves a string of church-state cases. The Georgia chapter was awarded $150,000 in fees after suing a county courthouse for the removal of a was required to pay $50,000, the State of Alabama $175,000, and the State of Kentucky $121,500, in similar Ten Commandments cases [http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_10cb.htm . The State of was required to pay the Union $111,000 in fees in a San Diego case. When taking on highly contentious cases the ACLU leaves itself liable to potentially damaging judgements against it if it were found to be filing a "frivolous" suit, regardless of whether the government may be liable. {Link without Title} CONTROVERSIAL STANCES The organization believes that free speech rights must be available to all citizens and residents of the United States. Therefore, it has taken on unpopular cases to defend the free speech rights of clients such as Ku Klux Klan members, Neo-Nazi groups, and NAMBLA , a group which supports legalization of Pederasty . The ACLU has defended Frank Snepp formerly of the Central Intelligence Agency (from an attempt of this government agency to enforce a Gag Order against him) and Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North (convicted on the basis of coerced testimony—a violation of his Fifth Amendment Rights ). The ACLU's stance on . In many cases, whether or not a stance is considered controversial depends on other political views the critic may hold. CRITICS OF THE ACLU The ACLU's involvement in hundreds of legal cases over the years have led to a great deal of criticism from numerous points of view. In many situations, the criticism may be focused on the ACLU's stance in a particular case or group of cases; in others, the criticism focuses on the general principles that guide the ACLU's choices of which cases to take. A wide variety of groups oppose some or all of the ACLU's "positions" listed above; several general themes of criticism are discussed here. Conservative critics The ACLU's most vocal critics are generally those who consider themselves, or are commonly regarded as, Conservative s. Many of these conservatives allege that the ACLU has not dedicated itself to the defense of constitutional rights, but that it seeks to advance a Liberal agenda. Some critics point to its opposition to the Death Penalty , which has been declared constitutional by the Supreme Court Of The United States since 1976, although it had been declared unconstitutional in practice from 1972 to 1976. The ACLU continues to argue that the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment restriction against "cruel and unusual punishment," the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of equal protection, and that it is contrary to International Human Rights norms. The 1980 '' Polovchak V. Meese '' case is also sometimes considered evidence of liberal sympathies on the part of the ACLU. Walter Polovchak was from Ukraine , at that time part of the Soviet Union , and when his parents were returning to Ukraine, tried to stay in the US and claim Political Asylum . The ACLU attempted to block him from doing so. In 1999 the Florida chapter of the ACLU referred to the ACLU's role in the Polovchak case in their brief for the Elián González case. Critics also argue that the ACLU has not been consistent in defending all civil liberties, pointing out that it is not active in protecting Gun Rights . Critics claim gun rights enjoy similar constitutional protection to other civil rights and should be treated equally by the ACLU if it is not motivated by a partisan agenda. The organization declares itself officially "neutral" on the issue of gun control, pointing to previous Supreme Court decisions such as '' United States V. Miller '' to argue that the Second Amendment applies to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia, and that "except for lawful police and military purposes, the possession of weapons by individuals is not constitutionally protected." {Link without Title} Some critics argue that this position is inconsistent with their stated philosophy, and have suggested that the ACLU may only adopt this stance to appease liberal-leaning supporters of the group who happen to also support gun control. Critics also point out that the ACLU does not take up cases that involve possible abuses by the in favor of a proposed Texas law, HB 823, in 2006, and claiming that current legislation allowed for the harassment of gun owners {Link without Title} . In 1982, the ACLU became involved in a case involving the distribution of law in question "has criminalized the dissemination, sale or display of constitutionally protected non-obscene materials which portray juveniles in sexually related roles", while arguing that child pornography deemed Obscene under the Miller Test deserved no constitutional protection and could be banned The ACLU's stance on this case has drawn great criticism from conservatives [http://euphoria.jarkolicious.com/journal/2005/06/16/516/ . In a 2002 letter, the ACLU stated that it "opposes child pornography that uses real children in its depictions" [http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacy.cfm?ID=10364&c=252]. The group has also come under fire, again mostly from conservative critics, for fighting against Megan’s Law , a law ostensibly enacted to protect children from sex offenders. Though the ACLU has fought Megan’s Law(s) in many states, it has been unable to attain significant victories in these cases. Bill O'Reilly has referred to the ACLU as "the most dangerous organization in America", and as an "anti-American" and " Fascist organization" on his various broadcasts, and frequently Criticizes The Group {Link without Title} . , or overly Litigious . The most frequent assertion, made in a plurality of eleven entries, was that the union was anti-Christian. Conservative Christian critics At the grassroots level, the ACLU often involves itself in cases involving the Separation Of Church And State . Therefore, some Christians , including many who may be considered Conservative Christian , often take issue with its positions. Many in this community contend that the ACLU is part of an effort to remove all references to religion from American government. In 2004, for example, the ACLU of Southern California (ACLU/SC) threatened to sue the city of if it did not remove an image of a cross from its seal. As in the Redlands case, the county board complied with the demands and voted to remove the cross from its seal as well. There was a petition against the changing of the seal, which ended on August 15 , 2005 {Link without Title} . In 1990 , Pat Robertson founded the American Center For Law And Justice , as a counterweight to the ACLU, which is perceived by Robertson as "liberal" and "hostile to traditional American Values "; another non-profit legal center, the Thomas More Law Center , also bills itself as the "Christian answer to the ACLU." After the September 11, 2001 Attacks , the Rev. Jerry Falwell remarked that the ACLU, by trying to "secularize America," had provoked the wrath of God, and therefore caused those terrorist attacks. (Falwell later apologized for the remark.) Other critics of the ACLU do not make such strong accusations, but claim that the organization pushes the concept of separation of church and state beyond its original meaning. The ACLU and Jerry Falwell sometimes find themselves on the same side. Notably, the ACLU filed an amicus brief supporting a suit by Falwell against the state of Virginia. The suit, which was successful, overturned the Virginia constitution's ban on the incorporation of Churches. In addition, the ACLU has defended the rights of a Christian church to run anti-Santa ads on Boston subways, the rights to religious expression by jurors, and the rights of Christian students to distribute religious literature in school. {Link without Title} While the ACLU does oppose the use of crosses in public monuments [http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43799 , there have been false allegations that the ACLU has urged the removal of cross-shaped Headstone s from federal Cemeteries and has opposed prayer by Soldier s; such charges have been deemed to be Urban Legend s. [http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/cemetery.asp] Many minority religious groups like Jehovah's Witnesses and Muslim s have at times been defended by the ACLU and are ardent supporters of it. In the Mormon community, the ACLU is viewed positively by some, who cite Santa Fe Independent School Dist. V. Doe , a case litigated by the ACLU on behalf of a Mormon student concerning School Prayer However, a good number of Mormons, including some local leaders, are strongly against the activities of the ACLU [http://www.timesandseasons.org/archives/000198.html . Jehovah's Witnesses were involved in twenty-three Supreme Court rulings between 1938 and 1946 over religious objections to serving in the armed forces and over saluting the flag and reciting the pledge of allegiance over local and state ordinances prohibiting the Witnesses from publishing criticisms of the Roman Catholic church [http://www.commondreams.org/views/022800-105.htm , as well as over government reluctance to prosecute anti-Witness vigilantes; the ACLU was directly involved in these cases The ACLU's involvement with Jehovah's Witnesses continues, and they joined the Witnesses in a 2002 case over doorbell-ringing [http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/1272268.html . Liberal critics The ACLU has also, though less frequently, been subject to criticism from the Political Left . Some critics object to the organization's advocacy for corporations' protection by the Bill of Rights known as Corporate Personhood , as well as its stance against some campaign finance reform laws. Feminist & Left critics Some Anti-pornography Activists , including Nikki Craft and Catharine MacKinnon , who oppose pornography on Feminist grounds, are also strong critics of the ACLU; in her lifetime, Andrea Dworkin 's positions on pornography also led her to similar stances. A group, started by Craft in the early 1990s, is called "Always Causing Legal Unrest (ACLU)"; the resultant acronym confusion led the then-director of the Union Dorothy M. Ehrlich to send a letter of protest {Link without Title} , but the Union did not pursue legal action against Craft's group. Libertarian critics While some refer to the ACLU as a oppose the ACLU for its support of laws that they view as distinctly anti-liberty, such as Affirmative Action and anti-discrimination laws that apply to private property. One objection held by some libertarians is the belief that private business owners, rather than the Government , should have the authority to decide which customers they serve and which employees to hire, even if these private business owners choose to base criteria on such things as race or gender. Former ACLU member Nat Hentoff has criticized the organization in a libertarian vein for promoting affirmative action and for supporting what he sees as government protected liberal speech codes enacted on college campuses and the workplace {Link without Title} . Law professor . EXTERNAL LINKS
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